Reuters
Last August two amateur treasure hunters said they had "irrefutable proof" of the existence of a World War II-era Nazi ghost train, rumored to be filled with stolen gold.
Screen grab/TVP
"The train isn't a needle in a haystack," said Andrzej Gaik, a retired teacher and spokesman for the renewed effort to search for the train told AFP.
"If it's there, we'll find it," Gaik added.
'There may be a tunnel. There is no train'
Reuters
Professor Janusz Madej from Krakow's Academy of Mining said the geological survey of the site showed that there was no evidence of a train after using magnetic and gravitation methods.
"There may be a tunnel. There is no train,"Madej said at a news conference in Walbrzych, according to the BBC.
One of the treasure hunters, Piotr Koper, insists that "there is a tunnel and there is a train" and that the results are skewed because of different technology used, the Telegraph reports.
Local folklore
Reuters
Reuters
According to a local myth, the train is believed to have vanished in 1945 with stolen gold, gems, and weapons when the Nazi's retreated from the Russians.
During the war, the Germans were building headquarters for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in Walbrzych's medieval Ksiaz Castle (then-called the Fuerstenstein castle).
Below the castle the Germans built a system of secret tunnels and bunkers called "Project Riese."
The train is in one of these hidden passages, says Tadeusz Slowikowski, the only living source of the train legend. Slowikowski, a retired miner who searched for the train in 2001, believes the Nazi's blew up the entrance to the train's tunnel.
"I have lived with this mystery for 40 years, but each time I went to the authorities they always silenced it," Slowikowski told The Associated Press. "For so many years! Unbelievable!"
Slowikowski, who searched for the train in 2001, believes it is near the 65th kilometer of railway tracks from Wroclaw to Walbrzych.